>> great hour. a kiss from branson. i think branson likes you, sue, but who doesn't? that will do it for "power lunch." >> you're sweet. i'll see you back at the ranch, ty. street signs begins right now. ♪ hello, i'm not johnny cash but we do have our own ring of fire today, as bond king bill gross says that bonds could be burned to a crisp by the fed. he is here with a terrifying number as well about how much america really owes. i advise you to sit down. speaking out that debt it is the debt clock. the pensions of just one all-american city. tell you where, coming up. plus what does shelia bare think of the big lawsuit against jp morguen? she is here to let us know. we want to know, who has a better chance of winning this year is it a, mitt romney, or b, the new york jets? vote now on our show page,

street signs.cnbc.com. the results, mandy, later in this cablecast. >> indeed. in fact, watching the trading day starting off in rally mode but that buying spree was short circuited about spain's fiscal situation. the dow lost a 52-point gain and on track for the sixth loss in eight session. the numbers more bearish for the s & p 500, down for the ninth time in 12 sessions and losing about 1.6% over that time. the nasdaq near break even, trying to avoid a six of seven losing streak t is down about 2% in that period. brian? the u.s. is addicted to budgetary crystal meth, those words from a man we are now calling "breaking bad" bill gross there he is. his new picture. he outlined america's severe spending addiction in his latest investment outlook and he has got some eye-popping stats on how much debt we may really have. he joins us now in a first on cnbc interview.

all right. enough enough of the pop culture references are. i had to do all could i to not drink heavily bufrt show when i saw the 60 trillion number. does america really owe $60 trillion? >> we do in terms of our stated current entitlements, the entitlements for medicare, medicaid and social security on a present value basis, brian, when you tack it on to the 15 trillion that we owe in bonds, you know, basically produces a total debt, yes, a debt to foreign countries but a debt to our own citizens expressed in terms of bonds and bills of $60 trillion. that is 500% of gdp, more than rival greece and other egregious countries rated junk or below. >> you think a possibility women start resemble greece, as it is right now? >> these are studies, mandy,

from the imf and the cb. >> the congressional budget office and the bis, you know, these are all in unison, says, this isn't pimco's opinion, but their opinion, that basically says fiscal gap of 8, 9, 10%, actually an 11% average which is $1.5 tral year, these are their numbers, basically say unless we start to reduce these numbers that, yes, we can be downgraded, that yes, you know, ultimately, inflation and a lower dollar and ultimately, as i mentioned, you know, bonds being burned to a crips and stocks being singed all as a result, you know, basically of too much debt relative to gdp, inn ability or unwillingness to alleviate a condition. >> the road which the can can be kicked down, bill surks long, we are finding out. debt going up and the appetite for u.s. treasuries seems to be growing as well, a lot of that from our own fed to, of course. i ask you, when does come to

roost? is there a breaking bad point, we can say november 12, 2022? a lack of funding date for the u.s. debt markets? >> not yes. they don't look at this as an armageddon for the united states. basically, we recognize that we are the reserve currency country, basically, a lot of things going for us. it is the fed buying 70 or 80% of the debt they are issuing, when do we reach that point, ed, which armageddon begins to be visible? we reach that point when, you know, the fed's operations can no longer support a strong dollar, when the fed's operations are buying for some of those treasuries produced inflation and ac sell rating inflation. we don't think that's over the next 12 months. we are still invested in u.s. treasuries, i'm just simply issuing a warning on behalf of the imf, the cbo and the bis

that things have to change. >> indeed, talking of treasuries, i saw stats today to say your bond fund lured $2.8 billion in new cash in september through september year-to-date over 12 billion dollars. >> these estimates basically say if we wait for another 12 months, waited the past 12 months and 24 months, basically our fiscal gap increase buys half a percent a year.

what you want do as an investor, you don't want to fight the central banks, buy what they buy before they buy it and that is basically the mortgage market today in terms of what people skoal buying and also beginning to look like italy in terms of what the ecb might be buying for or -- four or six weeks down the road. >> billionaire sam zell on squawk abortion i think you saw it you tweeted about it i want to play a soundbite about recession and you comment on t here is what sam zell her to say this morning on cnbc. >> we run a company that does a lot of corporate enterprise.

>> your response, are we headed toward recession? >> i don't think we are headed toward recession, we are at 1 to 2% growth and probably stay there we have, you know, of course the fed buying mortgages and treasuries at an $80 billion clip per month. he stayed is fixable, get back to business, unleash animal spirits. i think he is discounting the structural elements slower growth in terms of new normal. we have an anorexic consumer, wages and con pen says down 5%

relative to gdp. investment has nothing to sell to in terms of a consumer purse. we also have a very gem mow graphic situation urkt consumer, baby boomer is getting old, don't buy as much. a lot of problems here in addition to debt. >> i feel like you're a doctor delivering the bad news, telling me what my symptoms r i want the cure. what would you do right now to fix all of those symptoms you just listed? >> well, the cure, from our standpoint is a structural cure. you can't necessarily cure it with easy money, which is what the fed is trying to do you can't necessarily cure it with draconian fiscal measures which eliminate a deficit in a short period of time. you need to gradually, year by year, reduce that deficit

gradually. raise interest rates over time, in addition, need to focus from a fiscal standpoint on structural financing and structural investment that you know, this country sorely lacks. >> anyone have the will, the political will to be able to make those tough decisions right now? >> we will hear on wednesday in terms of the debates, i suspect not. the political will is divided is for their own team as for their own team, not necessarily for the united states. we are a little dour in terms of the ultimate prospects. >> matter who wins the president city for the markets? >> i don't thi so brian. i think basically what we have here is a large deficit that won't be reduced significantly. we have an easy fed that won't change its habits the next several years, the structural solutions required are five to ten years down the road. >> later on in the show, going to be talking about a mystery

city that shall be unveiled that is going through its up potential minifiscal cliff, a major pension crisis. what do you think about the increasing pension crisis we have and municipal bonds? >> i think there are situation in municipal space in terms of situations, situations in terms of what is underfunded. the interest rate views come down so significantly and quickly that all of these pension funds basically have not been able to immunize their portfolios, they haven't invested long term in terms of the bond market and stocks, they are 20, 30, 40% under water, problems, much like student loans, will take a long time to eliminate. >> bill, thank you for joining us and i read in your newsletter that your brother is not doing well, our thoughts to him as well. >> thank you, brian.

>> take care, bill. >> always good to have bill on the show. a market flash from jackie deangeles. >> a big mover today, msci. the reason, investment manager vanguard saying it is going to change the target benchmark for 22 index funds, moving six international stock found london-based ftse benchmarks, 16 others developed by the university of chicago. so losing some traction there and perhaps a little bit of relevance as well. msci, 27% decline in that sook today. back to you guys. >> jackie, thank you. all right, america, take a look at this mystery debt clock. that is not the debt of a country. that is not the debt of a state. it is a city. can you guess which one? >> indeed. and a big wall street bank hit with a lawsuit but before you celebrate, you are going to pay for it. oh, yeah exbaby, they are gonna get us back, america. that is next.

let's find out what is happening with the markets now? which are in the red. down on the trading floor mr. bob pisani the nyse. the last couple of days we have found that we have been blown in the wind by whatever headlines coming out of europe. we are getting euro trashed. the same happening at the margins today? >> frustrating to those of us who want to talk about the fundamentals of the united states that is right you man kim. here is mr. rah hoy from spain saying bailout request is not imminent. markets dropped on that we are

still moving sideways here not far from the session lows. stocks moving internally, express very disappointing numbers this morning. national retail federation, slower growth for christmas, those stocks to the weak side. stocks at a new historic low, man ditch i know this drives everything crazy, put up a chart where the euro is versus the s & p 500 the last month. what you will see is the whole chart, so moves the s and p 500, the euro in green, s & p 500, a one-month chart, man kim. you don't get more perfect correlation than this. the euro moving the s & p 500, not the other way around. people say good heaven, enough with spain and europe. i'm sorry, this is what is moving our market as well. you can see that pretty clearly here. mandy? >> if only all charts thought with were that clean it would

make it a lot easier. >> perfect. amazing. this is one month, not intraday. one month. euro versus the s and p 500. >> thank you, bob. jp morgan is preparing to defend itself against a civil suit by new york's attorney general who says the former bear stearns knew a unit of jpmorgan, defraud investers who bought their mortgage securities. guess what, america, we are all going to pay for it. >> that's right. i want to show you some things, know people tend to get angry about these banks and say that's right go after them. here is the problem, banks get find, you tend to take a hit. here's proof. three statistics you will not like, the average atm fee now $2.50. up four% year-over-year, places in new york are charging 3 or 3.50. average monthly checking account fee is up 25% year-over-year. minimum balances also on the

rise. the average overdraft fee, dip into credit, guess what that is also up 1.4% year-over-year to $31.26. by the way, returns on cds, other bank estimates, guess what they are down. costs up, returns down. talk about this with shelia bare, former chair of the fdic. shelia, before i get into details, i mean, this is what our smart viewing audience knew, right? stick it to the banks, they will stick it to you. >> right. >> up to them how they cover the costs they could reduce dividends or bonuses, frequently this is passed on to consumers i think scores a broader point. i welcome the enforcement action, glad this task force is up and running. or wish more of an enforcement effort tore individuals, take their money, bring actions

against institutions themselves, paid for with corporate money and passed on to consumers, shareholders, whatever, just passed on. the not going to be felt by the individual people responsible for this. >> with regards to the jpm case in particular, shelia, it does seem, on the surface, a little unfair, right? jpmorgan bought bear sterns at the behest -- >> bought their problems, very true. >> right. and now they have little or no indemnitily against these legal claims. what do you think is going to happen in this case? >> i don't know. but presumably jpmorgan chase did due diligence and understood there was litigation ex-bother sure as part of the franchise they were buying. you are right you can bought the problems, didn't create themselves, that is important for the public to understand. assuming this is the first of many cases that will be brought. again, i hope this task force will be focussing you as much if not more, on individual wrong doers and going after people person instead of the

corporations that again this gets passed on to consumers and shareholders. >> to the your point, for the sake of a bit of background for the viewers, obviously, it working group created by president obama to try go after wrong doing that led to the financial crisis, you are saying it could be the first of many, say this will set a litmus test or precedent for further cases? >> i would assume enforcement actions along the line. >> frustrating thing about the crisis and the aftermath, the cleanup phase is obvious, things don't get fixed, don't get address ready. in 2006, looking at the databases that contained the loans and securitizations, it was nuts what we were seeing, very high debt-to-income ratios, steep payment resets. these loans were made to default, either investors looked the other way, play is been some of that or not enough due

diligence or misrepresentation what was in the trusts, doesn't surprise me these actions are being brought. does surprise any is so long after after. >> i don't think it will hinder jpmorgan chase's abilities to make loans. i'm not sure i would draw this connection. it underscores a broader point we want the institution and

lending and enforcement effort and supervisory strategy should be based on them serving the needs, broader needs, credit needs of the economy. and need to be held to account. you sue the individuals, get their money, put them in jail as opposed to suing the banks themselves, those penalties -- >> entities are protected like individuals oftentimes. that is a great point. >> i think if you go after the individuals and put some real pain there, that that can impose discipline on risk taking going forward. if their wrongdoing is compensated for out of the corporate money, then they don't really feel much pain. so, i think in terms of addressing this and trying to make sure it doesn't happen again, suing people individually, taking their

fortunes, putting them in jail will have a greater affect. i think this has been part of the problem with the enforcement strategy, corporations are paying for this not individuals that created the problems. >> occupy wall street a thing of the past. how do we get our trust back to these big banks? >> that is a really good question. this is the leg gas soiflt bailout throwing taxpayer money at them made them profitable while the rest of the country suffers is a legacy, lack of trust, cynicism and eventment, understandable, very understandable against the banks is a real legacy of the bailout and another reason why we never, ever want to go down that path again. i think it is important for the public to differentiate among financial institutions and

evaluate their own kuns customer relationship how they are being treat ready. there is a difference in from financial institutions in terms of cull pan budget, legacy of the bailout, we tainted everybody with the same -- with the same -- we treated them all the same, wrong doers when there was variation in who was really behind this. so, i would encourage people to, you know, base their attitude of financial institutions based on their own customer relationship not being treated well, should go some place else. >> shelia bair, a pleasure to talk to you, thank you very much for your candid comments. talking about wall street so many miles away from wall street. looks beautiful there, doesn't it? >> yes, we are in a beautiful part of the world. yes very nice. now jackie d.. >> we are looking at kraft after the close yesterday, spun off, looking at two different stocks, kraft foods and mon dell lez. investors are like kraft foods better today the grocery business.

krafrlt kraft is the safer bets and pays a dividend, 4 1/2%. investors certainly liking that the other stock, mdlz, down slightly, down eight tenths of a percent. nothing huge. >> thank you very much. if you could pick an american economic dream team to save the country, who would be on it? well, burr -- you are about to get your chance. you will see how when street signs returns. get married, have a couple of kids, [ children laughing ] move to the country, and live a long, happy life together where they almost never fight about money. [ dog barks ] because right after they get married, they'll find some retirement people who are paid on salary, not commission. they'll get straightforward guidance and be able to focus on other things, like each other, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade.

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>> tell us how it works and what the scores r. >> basically, four jobs that you can fill. one is treasury secretary, arguably the most important in an economic team. the fed chairman, which someone might have a chance to replace ben bernanke with next year, the national economic council director, which is basically the white house chief economic adviser and wildcard, wildcard would cob office of management and budget exchief of staff or favorite idea is budget czar, mr. mayor, michael bloomberg, who scored high on that. so you can -- >> all three of ours, former bosses, by the way, michael bloomberg was at once all three of our bosses. >> exactly. maybe we are bias.

>> clearly hires good people and intensely qualified. >> he knows exactly how to gem gate. the basic idea, you get to delegate, choose the economic team and you can mix and match. you can say, okay, romney wins, put erskine boles in, scores very high on our model, as treasury secretary or budget czar, something like that or if you're president in a 2.0, say i want meg whitman to be in a tie. >> how did you pick the names? i played your little game aged lost. no winner. >> you choose one. >> i had 66 on dems, 65 so actually i went to the blue side, randomly. >> look at you, you democrat you. >> mike bloomberg as treasury secretary on both ones, by the way, mike, you listening? still love you man, enough call. how did you pick the snails. >> a lot to have is out there erskine bombs, -- erskine bowle,

the same thing, when we knew that tim geithner was leaving as treasury secretary, he would be the right guy if you believe fixing the fiscal cliff in budget issues, entitlement, key priority, kind of what we believe. >> different categories for the scoring. you might get a 5-5 for job creation but only a 2-5 for your international diplomacy. >> five criteria. one center national. one is budget. run one is legislative, your ability to work on the hill. the other two -- >> what about looks? good looking. >> didn't put looks in. >> great pecs. >> triedmake sure the guys -- used a methodology so everybody was equally objectively looked at and we found when we averaged each of the sides, 13.4 for each. didn't do that saying we had to be equal, you average for the republicans and democrats, turned out that way. if you had to pick one trait being the most important, put you on the spot, would it be looks or would it be height? >> i would say it's looks because it doesn't matter when

you're in front of the camera. >> thank you. >> you and i look like the same height, i'm shorter than you. everybody sees my face and see your face equally. >> you inwith. rob, you win. >> the makeup. >> it really s. >> going to put both of you on the dream team. there you go >> that would be great >> happy now? >> thanks. >> yeah. >> thanks a lot, rob. >> my pleasure. let's get another market flash from jackie dean gem less, news on a big stakes battle in vegas. >> that's right, brian. look at shares of wynn resorts now, trading lower by north of 1%. a nevada judge today ruling against wynn shareholder okada's motion for an injunction against a forced redemption of his 20% stake in the casino company this is sending that sook down. we have got 1.59 loss there, 113 spot 94. mandy? >> thanks. drivers showing a whole lot of love for one foreign carmaker around its it is the run of the datson. later on, the bank bank sold

for one euro bought for $2.2 billion euros. that heartwarming story coming up. [ male announcer ] at scottrade,

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it is street talk time. hitting more of the stock stories that you need to know about that you want to know about and you may not have seen elsewhere. so let me get to number one it is citigroup getting an upgrade today it has been down, however, the last few weeks, right? >> yeah, analysts here trying to give it a lift. you can see the stocks getting a bit of a lift. three-quarters of 1%. outperform from a market perform. $44 to $40 a share. stock appears cheap, trading at 64% of book value. also less than eight times estimates for 2013. capital ratio getting better. as our long lost friend would say, stock downgraded by another

firm last week, tug-of-war over the seed. >> chipotle today, david einhorn revealing a short position. >> look at this. >> clunk. own minicliff. >> einhorn saying a resurgent taco bell, more of a competitive threat. also worried about increased cost, talked about chicken inflation and corn inflation. einhorn mentioning giving works insurance, good for the worker, bad for profit margins. either way, einhorn short cmg. last year, revealed a short of green mountain coffee roasters. >> investors tuning into sirius xm. >> bank of america merrill lynch initiates a buy rating, now is the time to buy the stock, think that a change of control fully delivered to the media may be

more likely in the sooner than the later and that would allow more time to add -- bottom line, i will move on. bank of america, merrill lynch, like sirius, now is the time to buy the stock. >> big headlines coming out of the oracle open world conference today. >> shares down a little bit. they were up today. here is the deal, mark heard, the president of oracle telling our own maria bartiromo on closing bell that oracle continues to win business even in a difficult global economy and another huge interview coming up today. go now to maria, who is in san francisco, where shebl doing an extremely rare interview with larry ellison in a cnbc exclusive. awesome get. larry should be exciting. >> hey, thank you so much, brian, mandy, good to see you. we talked a lot about the cloud and about software as a service yesterday with mark hurd. today, going to get into deals. this company has been a serial acquir acquirer, i will ask larry

ellison about the deals and growth and when you strip away those deals what does the growth look like at oracle and what he might be eyeing right now. we will get into that, the company has grown through acquisition and one thing i want to talk to him b as well, lots of startups coming armed, oracle trying to win business from them. we will get his take on that and succession, a lot of issues to talk about here is a guy who has been a terrific spender, talk about his other hobbies, if you will and he is spending his own money. larry emson on "the closing bell" in the next hour, brian. >> yeah, i believe he just bought his ninth malibu man for cool $37 million. maria, are gouge put him on the spot? grill him about his call on the cloud? in 2008, i believe he said the cloud was nothing but a whole pile of hype and gibberish? >> yeah, well, you know what, they are here now and they are talking about the cloud creating big business, but you are right. it is stale very small percentage of revenue and the growth is largely coming from

software. this is obviously a database business. they acquired sun microsystem years ago and waiting to see a turn around and growth coming out of that part of the business, we will talk about that but the cloud is clearly on the horizon for a number of companies, that's the way they want to organize their data. so, oracle is here now. larry ellison will say that he actually had the idea to get in the cloud a long time ago but never moved on it. so, we will see how important the cloud ultimately would be. right now the data base business clearly really the driver of this business. >> maria, they say no man is an island, but apparently, a man can own an island. >> yeah. >> or two. >> i want to know who ounce the 2% of lanai he doesn't own. would you like to be that person? i'm 2 percenter. >> he ounce 98% of the island and just acquired a new home in malibu. here is guy who living -- is living large but let's not forget who this person s he came from very -- >> came from nothing. nothing. >> built this company from the

ground up. so good for him he can spend his money the way he wants to. >> very inspirational person. thank you very much for that, maria, looking forward to hearing all the details. the meantime, yahoo!'s new ceo is channeling her web dna to name her new baby and also going back to the future with the datsun starting at $3,000. but you will not believe the catch here, it doesn't have a flux capacitor. doc! you made it! welcome to the experiment >> doc. >> mart tichy. you made it. cl which can withstand over three and a half tons. small in size. big on safety. which can withstand over three and a half tons. boproductivity up, costs down, thtime to market reduced... those are good things. upstairs, they will see fantasy. not fantasy... logistics.

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[ male announcer ] the endlessly customizable 2013 smart. i'm bill griffeth. on closing bell, three huge interviews, former ceo carol bartz joining us, find out if her successor, melissa mayer, can turn around the >> can and new tar kentz vowing to double the revenue the next

decade for coca-cola. he will lay out the strategy for the goal and don't want to miss the rare and exclusive interview with the oracle himself, ceo larry emson. find out how he is planning to dominate the cloud and yes, sir going on that personal property buying spree. owns an island, owns now most of malibu. all that and more. maria still in san francisco, i'm still in new york. more at the top of the hour. the comeback in cars, auto sales continuing to be a sign of hope in the u.s. economy phil la superbowl behind the wheel for us. i want to ask you, look on at the on year numbers, don't look barked the on month numbers, tells a different story, doesn't it? >> yeah. month to month has been different than year-over-year, year-over-year, looking at gains between 11 and 12%. look at the numbers for the month of september. um see better-than-expected numbers, generally speaking, hay cross the board. toyota coming in, gain of 41.5%.

better than expected, as was honda and chrysler. gm and ford roughly in line with expectation. we mentioned toyota. the reason so many people are focused on toyota is because the gains picked up in the last couple of months for them. that company ford narrowed considerably, only 3,000 vehicle sales behind ford. an expanded lineup, 103% is substantial. i want to look at the big three market share. we crunched these numbers and you can see that there is a bit of a gain last year, the problems with honda and toyota well documented. this year, as two automatics have come back, seen the big three share drop, find out later today where that big three share stands as of september. also look at shares of nissan. this is not a pretty chart. if you go over the last six months, these guys have been hammered, nothing going well for them. u.s. sales down 1.1%. this is probably the best market in the world, guys, renault in

the heart of europe dealing with a disastrous situation there the strong yen does not help nissan in japan. across the board, not easy times for them. yes, the leaf had its best month ever, 984 sold last month. >> glad you brought that up because i believe bringing back the datsun here, particularly for the emerging markets, the cheapest model coming in at $3,000. i think about, what, phil, a third of the price already most inexpensive model. >> what you are looking at here is the plan of it coming in at $3,000. fee they can actually do this, because when you try to do mass production of models at $3,000, it's hard to make a profit. but carlos is adamant that a datsun entry level vehicle in emerging markets, you will never see it here in the united states but emerging markets, like in india, where they are trying to get people to go from the scooter into some kind of a car, that he thinks there's a market there i've been over to india. there's no doubt that that is the goal for a number of

families, they want to get off the scooter and into a car. >> great stuff. thank you very much, phil lebeau. today's sign of the times is yahoo!'s marissa meyer using the power of the people to name her new son. here is the thing. basically put it out there suggestions are welcome to name her son. at the moment, bbbb, big baby boy bog, the name of her husband. putting it out there to everybody to give suggestions, the modern woman working in a modern world. what do you think? >> i think it's neat. >> neat? we could name him neat. neat. >> i will let the internet vote. >> okay. >> i stepped in it already once with this story. i am moving on. used to seeing the federal debt clock, forget the government. here is a city with 21 billion of red ink just for pen eggses and put residents on in the, we need to fix our things or your property taxes will be tripled.

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because we all love baby animals, a little puppy love sunshine for you with petsmart, which up about 1.5%, or it was. now just over one. it has gained admission to the s&p 500. it's up, by the way, 33% this year so far and up 60% over the past 52 weeks. here's today's disaster. it is not a stock. it's a mini fiscal cliff. our mystery city debt clock came from chicago, illinois. and chicago could certainly be facing real financial disaster if it cannot get its pension reform act together. that debt already more than $21 billion, and every kid born in chicago today owes already about $8,000. so let us bring in lawrence, president of the civic federation as well as our own rick santelli. lawrence, i want to begin with

you. how bad is the situation in chicago? >> it's very bad. the city faces an enormous budget deficit, but in addition to that because of years of under funding of the pension and ignoring the financial liabilities, we're now faced with a city that could either triple the property taxes or cut the benefits for existing retirees and workers. >> how is it that the extent of this problem, lawrence, was not known earlier? somehow it that it was underestimated to this degree? >> there's been manipulation by our legislature, by everyone involved. instead of funding it according to the actuary, illinois uses a multiplier that has nothing to do with the pension program. for years we've been warning of this crisis. >> i have bad news for you, lawrence. we just saw the teachers union walk out over issues that are probably going to be a lot smaller than the real issues that we're going to have to face to fix the problem because i guarantee you even in chicago,

right, the level of support for democrats is going to taper off with every one or two 5% tax raise that the citizens get hit with. >> exactly. the average teacher salary is expected to go up 17% under the new contract in four years. nothing was done on the pension crisis. they face their own pension funding shortfall. so it may be a hollow victory to get a 17% raise and watch your economic security evaporate. >> we could be saying, oh, well that's illinois, that's chicago. at least it's not me. how many other cities are in this dire situation, lawrence? obviously at this stage, i believe, that illinois is the worst rate of credit in the u.s., but who else is in danger? >> well, certainly california has similar type problems. illinois has made itself the poster child by financial gimmick e gimmic gimmickry. for mayor emanuel, can he find the will to cut the benefits to

get the state legislature to follow him and cutting their own state pension benefits so we can stabilize the government. it's a very rough road ahead. >> let's bring in rick santelli. i don't see how you can do it. the numbers are so big. how are they going to fix it? >> well, you're just talking chicago. if you look at the illinois debt clock, it's approaching $200 billion. trust me, doubling and tripling property taxes, that's just going to halve the population of chicago or illinois. they're going to move to indiana or wisconsin. so this city, or maybe this state, is going to be left with even emptier schools, even less used infrastructure. the last mayor sold off the skyway. he sold off the parking meters. he was trying to sell the fresh water, but that they put the kibosh on. it's just horrible. it's horrible. i'll tell you, when we talk about greece or portugal or

spain and think it's way over the ocean, it doesn't hit us, this is our own southern part of europe in chicago, in illinois. they never say no to unions our guest is right. they say they can make 8.5 or 8% on their investments. they don't make their contributions. they're so underfunded. i don't know what they can do but basically cut a lot of benefits. i'll tell you what, whether it's michigan or illinois, democrats have never said no. they've never asked for anything. this is going to be quite a sight to behold. >> quite a sight to behold. sounds like a scary end game at this stage. lawrence, rick, thank you for weighing in. it's a very worrying situation. >> it is. income taxes hit the rich. property tax increases hit everyone that owns property. it's going to get worse before it gets better in chicago. all right. a french bank is selling a greek bank for one euro that it bought

for $2.2 billion euros in 2006. >> it is the bank that would stand to lose the most. obviously it wants to reduce its exposure to greece at this stage. that bank we're talking about here to be sold for one euro is their greek unit. this is a bank that has not made a profit since 2006 when it was bought. i believe -- actually, that's wrong. there was one year in 2007 when it made a profit. this has basically been a bad investment. okay. last chance to win in our street poll. who has a better chance of winning, mitt romney or the jets? we wlr have some results in. we're going to read them later on. don't go away. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about low-cost investing.

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now to our street poll. based on surprising comments from the new york jets owner, woody johnson, he told another network that if he had to choose between a mitt romney victory in november or a winning season for the jets, he would pick romney. so does romney have a better chance of winning than the jets? >> well, 70% said yes. 30% said no. there were no other choices. there you go. that's 100%, i do believe. that's all. >> i don't know if that bodes better for romney or the jets, to be honest with you. i think i might disagree with both of those. all right. th